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Oct. 6 B. Melvin postgame interview

Q. Bob, what you know about Verlander, he tends to be a little bit more vulnerable early in the game than he is later. I think you saw that tonight. Was that an inability maybe to cash in?

BOB MELVIN: I think most good starters, you try to get to them before they get into their rhythm. He certainly got better as the game went along. Velocity picked up like it typically does with him. But a lot of times your best opportunity is early in the game. I would agree with that.

Q. Your hitters were so good at fouling off pitches from Verlander here a few weeks ago. Did you see a different kind of approach from Verlander, kind of in response to that?

BOB MELVIN: No. I mean, you know, away to a lefty was going away to a lefty quite a bit and was getting that call out there, so continued to go out there. And we didn't foul as many balls off early in the game. I think we had him at 60 pitches after 3, so it was pretty similar to what we were trying to do before. And the last couple of innings he cut the pitch down to be able to go seven.

Q. You talked about Jarrod pitched pretty well. Seemed like in that fielding play, he expected Moss to be at first and there might have been some confusion there. Could you talk about that play and how key it was?

BOB MELVIN: That was a key play. I think he did the right thing. He just bobbled it, juggled it a little bit on the way to the base. If he fields it cleanly and keeps going, he gets the out. But he pitched well. That's one run. Another one is on a double play ball and got a pitch up and out over the plate to Alex, and those are the three runs. He pitched pretty well.

Q. Jackson's double off the glove, Berry's single off a glove, just the way the ball bounces?

BOB MELVIN: It is. I mean, both of them weren't hit right on the screws. But in the right spots. And a hit's a hit. I mean, you can't go back and replay that. You just have to move forward like Jarrod did and makes a good pitch on Cabrera and gets a double play ball and limits the damage there.

Q. Could you talk about Pat getting out there tonight. He talked about it being healing to be here and to get out and actually pitch and pitch well, just your thoughts on him and what he's going through.

BOB MELVIN: No, I thought that was great. We wanted to try to get him into a game sooner than later. I don't know that there's any great time to try to potentially get him a soft landing in the playoffs. But came and did a great job. Almost gets a double play ball. And then next hitter gets a strikeout. So I think that's probably not only was it good for us, it's really good for him to get in the game and contribute right away.

Q. Did you feel like your guys got a little frustrated with all the strikeouts? Do you think they dealt with that okay?

BOB MELVIN: Frustrated with the swinging strikeouts or called?

Q. Both.

BOB MELVIN: I think we were a little frustrated, yeah.

Q. I know you talked about this before the game, but can you just talk about how tough it's going to be to come back tomorrow with those so called internal clocks, 9:00 a.m. Oakland time?

BOB MELVIN: I don't think that's a problem. Both teams have to play with it. We've been on the road a lot in the East here recently in the last month. When it comes to turnover to a game like that, maybe a little bit more so if it's 7:00 to a noon game, but 6:00 to a noon game, we should be all right.

Q. Fly ball from Moss in the 8th, as he's going back, were you thinking that's going out, or did you just think

BOB MELVIN: I thought it was going out. I think we all did. When he catches one like that, they go out. I think he did get it off the end just a little bit. But when it went off the bat I thought it had a good chance to go out, yeah.